The Fukushima children who have to play indoors – in pictures

11 March marks the third anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The nearby city of Koriyama recommended, shortly after the disaster, that children up to the age of two should not spend more than 15 minutes outside each day

Children play in an indoor sandpit at the Emporium kindergarten. The limits were lifted last year, but many kindergartens and nursery schools continue to obey them even now in line with the wishes of worried parents. Photograph: Toru Hanai/Reuters

A doctor conducts a thyroid examination on a five-year-old girl as her older brother and a nurse take care of her at a clinic in a temporary housing complex in Nihonmatsu. Photograph: Toru Hanai/Reuters

A man uses a roller near a Geiger counter, measuring a radiation level of 0.207 microsieverts per hour, during nuclear radiation decontamination work at a park in Koriyama. Photograph: Toru Hanai/Reuters

An indoor playground facility in Koriyama. An annual survey by the Fukushima prefecture board of education found that children in Fukushima weighed more than the national average in virtually every age group. The cause seems to be a lack of exercise and outdoor activity.
Photograph: Toru Hanai/Reuters